Pharmaceutical sales incentives surprise

[Masquernom]

I was at my doctor's office this morning for a routine blood draw. The phlebotomists were discussing the baked potato bar they were having for lunch today. Turns out, drug salesmen were providing it for the whole office. I'd guess something over 20 people work in the office. I told them I was surprised at that. They said it was a salad bar the day before. Salesmen apparently offer to provide lunch every day, but the office didn't want it that often. They said some doctors got free breakfast and lunch every day from salesmen.
I expect the cost for the meals is expensed and it's probably tax deductible for the drug company as some sort of entertainment for customers. But, it sure seems like a lot when you consider how many medical offices there are in America. I guess that's one of the reasons for the high cost of drugs in the US.

 

[jazz4cash]

Where are the patient’s baked potatoes?

 

[GrayHare]

Where are the patient’s baked potatoes?

Maybe they're baked into Part D.

 

[Fermion]

This is all very easily fixed! Outlaw kickbacks and advertising in drug sales. Get this to pass by offering the carrot of 15 year exclusivity on new drug indications instead of the current 3 years (sometimes 5 years).

If you spend hundreds of millions up to billions getting a drug to market and only have 3 years before generics take all of your work away, then I think you would heavily advertise as well.

 

[CDRE]

From the landing page of the following website: "Bring lunch to health care workers during a pharmaceutical sales rep visit" CMS Open Payments

 

[Aerides]

It happens in every industry. When I used to have to hire some outsourced developers, their company used to bring in bagels and want to take me to lunch, etc., it's pretty common.

 

[Sorcerer]

I'm sure it's not because the pharma reps are trying to push certain drugs to be prescribed to patients. They would never do that.

 

[braumeister]

Yes, extremely common.
And some doctors make out like bandits from these companies.

Wonder if yours is one of them? Look it up:
Open Payments

Older data here:
Dollars for Docs

 

[RetMD21]

I'm sure it's not because the pharma reps are trying to push certain drugs to be prescribed to patients. They would never do that.

IDK why I never saw the folks promoting generics doing this

 

[Koolau]

One side of the story.

The other side is that medical professionals can't keep up on all the literature about the newer drugs/devices. Education during lunch is one way to learn fast (all be it, from a company's view point).

Same deal as lobbyists and Congress. "Dirty" but the whole system would shut down without them.

Not defending the practice. Just sayin'. This is how it's done. Probably gonna be that way when we're all gone.

 

[Fermion]

IDK why I never saw the folks promoting generics doing this

Because they don't need to do it? They can piggyback on the efforts of the original drug maker without doing any real work.

It'd be like if I downloaded a bunch of movies off of Netflix and then provided my own streaming service with a much lower fee. I wouldn't need to advertise much because Netflix does it for me. All I need to do is call my service Netflixcheaper and just let the profit roll in. It is a great system!

 

[EastWest Gal]

Very common. But just like advertising, only the most expensive and new drugs get promoted to the docs. We kept samples in a closet. Really helpful when treating patients with no insurance or with no time to go to the pharmacy. Especially antibiotics and asthma meds, or specialty formulas for kid with genetic disorders. Potentially life saving. The practice is rather unethical but we tried to make lemonade out of the lemons. Our office didn't have lunches, but the reps came by and established friendly relationships. The "education" was mainly that this or that product exists. I researched the literature before making a change.

 

[finnski1]

Yes, extremely common.
And some doctors make out like bandits from these companies.

Wonder if yours is one of them? Look it up:
Open Payments

Older data here:
Dollars for Docs

Interesting. My Primary Care Doc had a grand total of $15.03 for the past 6 years.

 

[Koolau]

I can assure you that this "practice" of "wining and dining" doctors is the model for many kinds of products. I used to make decisions on safety products at Megacorp. I can't tell you the number of meals I got treated to when I attended safety conferences. There were even catered lunches in a conference room at Megacorp offices from time to time. We're talking about "industrial" level stuff being pushed here - not drugs. Yet the model was very similar.

 

[Masquernom]

I'm familiar with vendors providing lunch for a sales meeting. That's standard practice in most industries. I never heard of providing meals, day after day. I assume the sales rep isn't there every day. It's possible I misunderstood what they were saying, but I got the impression it was basically free lunch every day all year if they wanted it. They may have exaggerated, and the meals were only offered during sales visits.

 

[threeonesix]

I'm told it actually has very little to do with "learning lunches", there aren't that many new drugs every year. Medical offices don't often want their employees leaving the property for lunches as they want all hands on deck in case there is an emergency. At least that's what my CRNA friend tells me. She said she's never paid for a lunch in 23 years of working at her surgery center. If a pharma or other rep isn't paying the collection of doctors that run the center do.

 

[Just_Steve]

From the landing page of the following website: "Bring lunch to health care workers during a pharmaceutical sales rep visit" CMS Open Payments

According to that site my Doctor took a whopping $416 in 2024 and $3,000 since 2018 when you look at the break downs it looks like they buy coffee for the Dr and office every so often. A bunch of $20 and $30 payments form different pharma companies.

 

[GrayHare]

Sometimes it gets blatant. I used to get asked for kickbacks when selling, not by medical pros, though. Always wondered about when the kickback demanders would be reprimanded.

 

[reneeh63]

Yes, extremely common.
And some doctors make out like bandits from these companies.

Wonder if yours is one of them? Look it up:
Open Payments

Older data here:
Dollars for Docs

Thanks - very interesting!

Looks like the U.S. median is around $150 annually - figuring most docs make at least $300k, I'm willing to say $150 isn't meaningful. Now, if you're one who is actively working for them and getting tens of thousands in speaker fees, that's another matter.

 

[Koolau]

I'm familiar with vendors providing lunch for a sales meeting. That's standard practice in most industries. I never heard of providing meals, day after day. I assume the sales rep isn't there every day. It's possible I misunderstood what they were saying, but I got the impression it was basically free lunch every day all year if they wanted it. They may have exaggerated, and the meals were only offered during sales visits.

It's not the same drug company or device manufacturer every day. There are enough of these companies pushing product that most dr. offices could eat "free" every day.

 

[skipro33]

I had a friend who was a rep for a pharma. They shipped him the samples and he had to get rid of them or they stacked up in his garage until the quantity violated laws. I can testify he was highly motivated to keep his "stash" under arrest limits and gave away a lot of samples to doc offices.
That educated me to always ask the doc for samples if they were going to write a prescription. They were happy to do so if they had it.

 

[Koolau]

I had a friend who was a rep for a pharma. They shipped him the samples and he had to get rid of them or they stacked up in his garage until the quantity violated laws. I can testify he was highly motivated to keep his "stash" under arrest limits and gave away a lot of samples to doc offices.
That educated me to always ask the doc for samples if they were going to write a prescription. They were happy to do so if they had it.

My doctors know I have "good" insurance and never offer free samples of drugs.

 

[skipro33]

My doctors know I have "good" insurance and never offer free samples of drugs.

Probably why they never offered to me either, but if it saves me from going out on public, especially to a pharmacy where there's likely to be sick people, and since I remain immune compromised, I'll ask.

 

[folivier]

My primary doc that I saw for over 20 years would always give me a little brown paper bag full of samples for whatever ailed me. Probably saved me thousands of dollars over the years.
But yeah I've seen calendars at doctor's offices which had every day of the week penciled in with lunch and who provided them. Even saw a sign at one office that said to talk to a particular person for lunch orders.
When I was a purchasing agent early in my career we were taken to lunch 3 or more days each week by salesmen. This was before the govt. discouraged drinking so we always had a drink or 2 at lunch.

 

[Flyfish1]

The State of NJ clamped down on this years ago- much to my disappointment. Reps could only pay a specified amount per Doc for lunch. So, good lunches, nice dinners got downgraded horribly. Back in the day we would get taken out to excellent dinners. But that paled in comparison to what my Ortho friends would receive. they would get box seats at the best NBA games, wined and dined at the finest steak houses, etc. I guess when you are putting in $10,000 of hardware in a patients knee you really got a lot more free meals.
As stated above having the reps bring samples was super hlpful to our patients who needed something immediatley or wanted to try a product before committing to it. When Covid hit the reps stopped coming, samples dried up, wasn't good. Over the years you do make some good relationships with the reps and they would provide data that was often helpful. It wasn't evil, it was helpful and to be honest I would only use the drugs I was comfortable with and had researched.